Promotion of salt cave therapy is full of giant holes
Shake up your health routine with salt caves
Wars have been fought over it.
Soldiers have been paid in it.
Human beings are genetically engineered to crave it.
And, according to holistic enthusiasts, it could very well be the cure for everything from insomnia to allergies to ADHD.
What is this miracle that has such a drama-heavy history?
Salt.
This chemical compound is a vital part of a salt-cave trend that is all the rage in Europe and has begun spreading to central Pennsylvania. Salt caves are rooms coated from floor to ceiling in salt while a halogenerator permeates the salt throughout the air. People go in, lounge around in zero-gravity chairs for 45 minutes and simply breathe it in. When they walk out the miracle claims begin.
Source: The Patriot News
Soooo many things wrong with stories like these, it is hard to begin. First, it was featured in the Life section of the newspaper with a beautiful picture of people smiling and relaxing in lounge chairs. We are told that people are stressed and need to relax in quiet areas. The salt cave helps them do this, resulting in better sleep, better focus, less stress overall. My option? Save $15-25 a pop, put on some ocean sounds in peaceful room and learn how to meditate your worried thoughts away.
The article quotes two scientists that do not seem all that familiar with this complemetary/alternative feel good therapy. Neither give a good explanation of why it is very obviously a placebo effect or a condition that can be treated with good quality air or saline nose spray (at $3 a bottle).
I’m not going to address the ion thing because it makes no sense. You’ll have to look it up but the article hints that ionization is not even happening here to the degree it would be noticable. There is some “blinding with science” going on. Don’t be fooled because these people are not scientists. They mix up concepts that simply don’t go together, as does the author of the piece.
Regarding asthma, a Cochrane review[1] showed this: The available evidence does not permit a reliable conclusion as to whether speleo-therapeutic interventions are effective for the treatment of chronic asthma. Randomized controlled trials with long-term follow-up are necessary.
And, another journal result[2] gave me this: Psychotherapy-related methods such as relaxation, hypnosis, autogenic training, speleotherapy, and biofeedback might have a small effect in selected cases, but have not proven to be superior to placebo. Nevertheless, more randomized controlled trials of good methodological quality are required to allow firm conclusions.
What do these results tell me? That salt caves or speleotherapy has NOT been shown to work (any better than placebo). That’s instructive, because if it worked reliably and WELL, by logical conclusion, we would have been able to establish that by now and your doctor would be recommending it for your respiratory conditions. As it stands, salt caves are a fancy relaxation center.
1. Beamon S, Falkenbach A, Fainburg G, Linde K. Speleotherapy for asthma. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2001; (2):CD001741
2. Györik SA, Brutsche MH. Complementary and alternative medicine for bronchial asthma: is there new evidence? Curr Opin Pulm Med. 2004 Jan;10(1):37-43.
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